#james paton

[gemlikeabovethebay]

Officers and crew of the Aurora, Ross Sea party. Sydney, early November 1914.

Rear (from left): Joyce, Hayward, Cope, Spencer-Smith, Mauger, Wise, Paton, Wallace (later resigned).

Center: Mason (resigned), Leonard (resigned), Mackintosh, Stenhouse, Larkman, Stevens.

Front: Warren, Mugridge, Atkin, Grady, Downing.

[gemlikeabovethebay]

Dr. Alister Forbes Mackay and chief engineer Harry Dunlop on the Nimrod. Since the striped sleeve jackets were only worn on the voyages made under Captain England, the photo was likely taken in 1907 or early 1908.

The identities of the photobombers cannot be confirmed, but the man in the dark hat resembles second officer Aeneas Mackintosh, and the man in the white hat resembles leading seaman James "Scotty" Paton.

[gemlikeabovethebay]

January 3, 1909

Aeneas Mackintosh, Michael McGillion, James Paton, and Sidney Riches set out from SY Nimrod to deliver mail to the party who had overwintered at Cape Royds. Paton suffered an injury that same day, and he and Riches returned to the ship safely.

The next day, Mackintosh and McGillion encountered open water and attempted to return to the ship. They encountered open water again, and had no choice but to make for the land. By jumping from floe to floe, dragging the mail and the sledge, they managed to reach land.

"Again Bobbie Burns's words 'The nice laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley' cross my mind. This is the second time in the Antarctic that I have had good cause to remember those words."

-Aeneas Mackintosh, Shackleton's Lieutenant

[gemlikeabovethebay]

James "Scotty" Paton aboard SY Nimrod.

Paton was an experienced Antarctic sailor, having been part of the Discovery Relief Expeditions, Nimrod Expedition, Terra Nova Expedition, Ross Sea Party, and Ross Sea Party Relief Expedition. This work spanned the years 1902-1917.

He was the first person to land on Beaufort Island in the Ross Sea. The highest point of the island is named Paton Peak in his honor.

Paton was the boatswain on SY Aurora when she went missing in 1917.

[freefall-fiction]

Glasgow in the Rain

by James Paton

An incessant hum, a downbeat groove.

The pitter-patter splashes of a brush against a hi-hat.

Black patches stretch out across insipid grey walls as though arms fumbling for a thick, surly sky that smothers out the sun, and filters away the last flickering traces of daylight from the world. Clouds mesh together above lumbering figures, all hunched over and bitter, treading thunderous footsteps along busy, cramped streets, as cars, buses and trucks screech heavenwards, violent and confused. 

Tall buildings fashion vain attempts to caress the infinite swathe of grey above, each illuminated like a doll house and filled with the anguish of lost youth, the pressures of a rat race already run and lost. A paper trail towards a destiny unwanted, an early demise, an unfulfilled promise. All victims of laughing chance, a fairy tale dark and forgotten, the twisted tale of capitalism’s lasting failure.

Two men-one blue, one green-stand staring, vacant and bemused, hatred burning in their hearts and on their tongues, a vitriolic spat with no end in sight. Bitterness entrenched in the black and white annals of history, yet not buried in the past, its enduring legacy encroaching upon the present, confusing, destructive and unjustified.

Fingers licked and candles extinguished, a swirl of smoke and then gone.

A buzzing, a ping, and then light.

The darkness yields but does not dissipate.

Walls of glass mirror the soft focus footage of a city in motion back upon itself, a feedback loop that sends the din flying upwards unbounded, yet never does it go too far, never does it need to be pulled back in. Life swells and flourishes under lamp light, under colours vivid and powerful. Garish neon fluorescence, a beacon to the young still trying to discover who they are and what they can do, a signal to the night that it will not win.

Puddles form streams, rivers and seas across tarmac expanses as murky as the night, continents are carved out in busy city streets, peoples become divided, yet they are not lost forever. Obstacles are only such when you allow them to endure, for every problem there is a solution, and for every Glaswegian, a friend.

Downtrodden, stepped on and overlooked, doomed to see the grave as hurriedly as their legs may whisk them there, yet they meet it with a smile born from a life well lived, and full of love. A pat on the back, a handshake, acknowledgement. Yet you turn your heads and walk on by, never once witnessing the quandary of ignominious poverty, but perhaps most of all, and it is worse for you, you shall never know of the kinship of community, the gloriousness of a friend. Glasgow’s spirit sent soaring and carefree, a city brought together as one, with universal hope for a better tomorrow and a day spent basking under a glorious sun.

The light that burns twice as bright, it has been said, will burn half as long.

Yet when life is as dark and impenetrable as night, Glasgow can be a beacon of hope.

[picture-diaries]

Our identity establishes our lifestyle.

James Paton

[picture-diaries]

We all lose our innocence as we grow up.

James Paton